Enrollment Form
Since the year 2000…High Trails might just be the longest running outdoor education program in the San Bernardino mountains of Southern California. A sincere THANK YOU to all of our schools, teachers, administrators, parents, students, and supporters. This will mark our 26th year of helping students experience nature in the mountains of Southern California.
How Open Enrollment Works
Open Enrollment runs from April 1 to April 14, with date assignments and contracts going out at the beginning of May.
When you submit your Enrollment form during this window does not matter; we will take all the requests and begin putting together the schedule once this Open Enrollment window ends (After April 14th). See below for more details about Enrollment Preference. Once this window closes and contracts are returned, openings are available on a first-come, first-served basis.Notes for the 2025-2026 School Year
- Tuition prices have gone up slightly to reflect the increase in the CPI over the past year. This helps us cover the cost of increasing food, staff, etc., as the CPI goes up.
- Our Medical team consists of Wilderness First Responders (WFR) and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT); medical care is provided 24hrs a day. We do NOT have a Nurse on staff. It has been difficult to hire and retain a qualified Nurse who is both willing to live in a remote, forested area and is physically capable of responding to emergencies in this challenging environment. We have found that ambulance based and wilderness medical trainings (WFR & EMT) provide a necessary amount of clinical education with an essential piece of physical capability needed for our natural environment. Due to this, next year, we are not accept reservations from schools or districts that require a Nurse to be on site 24 hours a day or to be the Medic. We will have a qualified medical team trained and able to respond to emergencies and provide quality medical care to our students following the legal requirements for organized camps; it will not be a Nurse. (This is the system we have been operating with to great success. Therefore, if you have been to High Trails before, it will be what you are familiar with!)
- High Trails will continue to only operate out of one site for the 2025-26 School Year: Camp Edwards. We have operated here since 2007; it’s a great little site with cabins close together, nestled in the woods. Hikes to Jenks Lake and beautiful overlooks abound! An important note: there are no bathrooms attached to cabins. There are centrally located bathhouses the students will use with their Cabin and Field Groups.
- We know the number of students attending may change between when you Enroll and when you actually arrive at High Trails; this is why we have a clause in our contract that allows you to adjust your numbers to 90% of what you originally enrolled. However, we have seen bigger drops in student numbers attending than contracted recently, leaving big gaps in our schedule where we still have financial obligations – site, food, staff etc. Therefore, if the number of students attending drops more than 90%, the traditional scholarship of 1 for every 25 students attending will not be offered and a $500 fee will be charged (typically in the form of the the deposit).
Enrollment Preferences for Schools
As we will only be operating out of one site this coming school year, unfortunately, we will not be able to accommodate every school. Therefore, please review the following to understand how we give preference:
We are still asking schools to give us their top choices of dates, but along with this, we are going to give more preference to schools as we work the schedule. Preference goes to 1) longevity of your relationship with us; the longer you’ve been attending High Trails, the more we will weigh your enrollment form, 2) schools that pay their invoices on time and fill out their program and student forms on time, and 3) join us as respectful and constructive partners as we all work together to give your students a great outdoor experience.